SS Totenkopf France 1940 (Images Of War - Rare Photographs From Wartime Archives)

This now infamous Division first came into being during October 1939 and was principally formed through the use of concentration camp guards from the SS-Totenkopfverbände and other related units. Some of its officers served in Poland in 1939 with the SS-Verfügungstruppe, but the large majority of its members had not seen any form of combat and their commander was SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke (1894-1943). This force was held in reserve during the initial stages of the assault on France and The Low Countries until 16 May 1940, chiefly due to that inexperience and senior officers distrust because of their origin and makeup. They first went to war against the troops of the BEF and committed their first of many known War Crimes only a few weeks afterwards. At the French village of Le Paradis on 27 May 1940 troops from 4th Kompanie, I Abteilung, commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein (1911-1949), executed ninety-nine British POWs of the Norfolk Regiment inside a barn. The troops had been captured during a battle in the same area, and against all odds two soldiers survived the massacre and managed to crawl away severely injured with gunshot wounds and grenade fragments, both were later found by regular Wehrmacht troops and given medical treatment. After the war, Knöchlein was located and put on trial by a British War Crimes Tribunal, convicted of all charges in 1948, he was sentenced to death and that sentence was carried out in 1949.This account of the Division's war during that campaign and the associated images within are taken from a German Book released during the war in 1941 entitled DAMAL and published by the SS internally at Stuttgart. It has been Translated and Edited by Military Historian Jack Holoyrd and he has also added further explanatory notes to the original text in which he details events like the massacre at La Paradis, the final fate of those who are mentioned, and other points of historic interest. By the end of the Second World War the reputation of Hitler's Schutzstaffel (SS) had become so heavily sullied that the organization was branded criminal and banned in postwar Germany. It's authority in Nazi Germany had been enormous having been made responsible for Reich internal security, it implemented Nazi racial policy and managed the death camps. Most oddly it produced a rival military organization to the German regular army fighting alongside it but never a part of it the Waffen SS. SS-Totenkopf is a photographic account of that unit's birth and first month of active service. The Division, formed from concentration camp guards, fought alongside Rommel's 7th Panzer Division against the only British armored counterattack of the campaign. However, instances of atrocities committed by men of the Totenkopf began early and the machine-gunning of 97 prisoners of the Norfolk Regiment occurred. In this brief and violent history of the birth of an SS division the original captions and text which accompanied the photographs have been retained in order to capture the original flavor. The translated text appears inter spaced with the author's explanations. The SS War Correspondent photographers risked their lives to take some of these pictures so up-with-the-action they were and, with their 'blood up', their comments are nationalistically passionate. This is understandable, so successful was the Blitzkrieg campaign in 1940 compared to the efforts of their fathers in 1914-1918 when they failed to break through to the Channel coast. It helps us to understand the euphoric reaction of some of the Totenkopf at the sight of the English Channel. [Elib]